Matthew 6:12-24 - Don't Store Up Treasures on Earth
Tom Shrader exposes the futility of storing up earthly treasures from Matthew 6:19-24, explaining that everything we accumulate here will ultimately be destroyed or lost. He warns that no one can serve both God and money, as these masters make completely opposing demands on our lives. Through sobering statistics about American debt and spending, he challenges believers to invest in eternal treasures rather than temporary ones.
“Every ounce of time, energy and effort that's invested in this kingdom is an ounce of time, energy and effort that I can't invest in the kingdom of God.”
— Tom Shrader
Series: Sermon on the Mount
Recorded: May 09, 2002
Duration: 44 min
Themes: money, treasure, materialism, priorities, contentment, stewardship, greed, generosity, struggling with debt, materialistic desires, financial stress, wealthy believer, young professional, parent teaching children, consumer culture, retirement planning
Scripture: Matthew 6:19-24, Matthew 5:20, Matthew 7:1, Matthew 9:14-15, Philippians 3:20, 2 Corinthians 5:20, 1 Timothy 6:17, Ecclesiastes 5:10
Theological Themes: mammon, worldliness, eternal perspective, kingdom values, spiritual treasure, biblical stewardship, heart idolatry, discipleship
Full Transcript
Matthew, chapters 5, 6 and 7, and we've said to you before, here's the key verse, it's Matthew, chapter 5, verse 20: "For I say to you, that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and the Pharisees, you'll not inherit the kingdom of heaven."
Again to us that statement means not much, because we have a pretty low view of the scribes and the Pharisees, but in Jesus' day, the scribes and the Pharisees were the guys. We've talked to you before, there was an old saying that the Jews had, that if only two people could go to heaven, one would be a scribe and one would be a Pharisee. So Jesus drops this in to them, and this is a bomb. When they hear this, they have to respond, because at that point they understand they've got no chance. Heaven is not in their future, they hear that.
Jesus Looks at the Heart
Jesus then tells them why. He's looking not at our actions, but our heart. And you and I will constantly be judging, in spite of the fact that we're going to be dealing with this in a couple of weeks, Matthew, chapter 7, verse 1: "Do not judge, lest you be judged." We'll be talking about that, yet we judge, but we have no way of judging someone's heart.
Somebody was asking me about somebody just the other day when we were talking, and he said, "What do you think his motives are?" Anything I have would be speculation, so why would I speculate and either artificially puff up and encourage the guy, or mistakenly discourage him and ascribe negative motives to him? That doesn't make sense. So I can't look into somebody's heart. Jesus can, and does.
So He looks at the scribes and the Pharisees, and He says, these guys are a sham. These guys are a joke. They look great on the outside. Everything looks good. Everything's in its right place, and they're doing the right things, but they're doing them for all the wrong reasons.
That's what we looked at in chapter 5 from verse 21 to verse 48, basically a continuation of the same idea. The idea was, listen, I'm taking you beyond the action. I want to deal with your heart. And now He gives us three concrete examples. He talks about giving. He talks about prayer, and He talks about fasting.
The Pattern of Hypocrisy
There's a pattern in these as well. Here's the verse that sets up our understanding. Chapter 6, verse 1: "Beware of practicing your righteousness before men to be noticed by them. Otherwise, you have no reward with your Father who's in heaven."
That becomes the driving motivation. Jesus says, I'm going to lift up the veil and let you look into the hearts of these guys. Here's what's wrong with them. That's why I call them hypocrites, because if you look inside, their motivation is not to please God. It's not to build His kingdom. It's to be seen by men, by women, by others, and Jesus said they've got their reward now.
Remember when He talked about giving? He said, "Therefore," verse 2 of chapter 6, "you give, don't sound the trumpet before you as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may be honored by men." You give. Jesus said, "Truly, I say to you, they have the reward, but when you give, don't let your left hand know what your right hand's doing." There's spontaneity to it. There's anonymity to it. He says, give in secret.
Verse 5: "When you pray, do not pray as the hypocrites, for they love to pray and stand and pray in the synagogues and the street corners in order to be seen by men." There's the same phrase again. So Jesus says, when you pray, get off by yourself. You're not praying for men and for their benefit and to be seen by them.
The Third Example: Fasting
Now we come to something that we probably rarely talk about and even less often do, and that's the idea of fasting. If Jesus says, listen, pray this way, give this way, we're taking some notes. When we say, fast this way, we're going, "Gee, I don't, really? You think so?" And Jesus said, yeah, and here we go, verses 16, 17, and 18.
"Whenever you fast, do not put on a gloomy face as the hypocrites do, for they neglect their appearance in order to be seen fasting by men." There's the same pattern. They're fasting. That's a good thing. Jesus is going to say, you do that, but they're doing it for all the wrong reasons. "Truly I say to you, they have their reward in full. But when you fast," so the implication is there that we will do this, "anoint your head, wash your face so that you may not be seen fasting by men, but by your Father who is in secret, and your Father who sees you in secret will repay you."
Understanding Biblical Fasting
Give you just a little general information. We're not going to take a ton of time on the fasting part of it, because what it is is just another illustration. If the question comes up, should you fast? The biblical answer is, yeah. What's that start to look like?
Fasting's part of virtually every religion, very much a part of old-time pagan religions. They felt that the demons could enter the body through food, and when they were under attack or they were in the midst of hard times or difficulty, they'd stop the food and try in some way to impede the demons as they intervened and intruded into a life. Eastern mysticism uses that. Today, fasting's become very popular here for physical reasons, purely, cosmetic reasons often.
But in the Scripture, the Bible has no record, no teaching or practicing of fasting for really practical reasons. Legitimate fasting always had a spiritual purpose to it, never presented of having any value in and of itself. There's nothing about the value that God seems concerned about in His Word.
The word fasting means literally, you probably could get this, not to eat or to abstain from food. Fasts were sometimes total. They were sometimes partial. Sometimes you'd see a sunrise to sunset fast. Sometimes you'd see people in fasting situations. In normal and biblical times, you'd see them just with water, but you'd see different kinds of fast. Well, the fast was all about spiritual things, and that's what the Scripture's
Jesus says, listen, when you fast, don't fast like these hypocrites who put on a gloomy face and neglect their appearance. Here's what these guys would do. They would literally find old clothes. They would change their physical attire and appearance. They might even put on makeup to look more pale and hollow and washed out. They'd cover themselves periodically with dirt or ash. They'd wear clothes that were torn and dirty, kind of like the jeans that drives me nuts that they're buying. The whole point here was not Jesus doesn't get into all this—here's when I want you to fast, and here's what to eat, and here's what not to eat. He just says, listen, don't do it. Have the right heart. If your heart's not right, fasting or praying or giving or your whole life is a sham and a mockery.
So Jesus said that heart needs to be right. Let me give you a couple of things about fasting that I just gleaned from the Scripture. I'll give them to you quickly, and then we'll move on with this.
Jesus' Teaching on Fasting
Jesus' disciples did not fast while He was on this earth. At one point, the disciples of John the Baptist come to Jesus and ask Him, why don't your disciples pray like us and pray like the Pharisees? And Jesus said, the attendants of a bridegroom cannot mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them, can they? But the day will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast. It's Matthew 9 verses 14 through 15.
One of the reasons that people fast is in association with sorrow or mourning. It may be over an event, something tragic. It may be over sin. We saw instances where David fasted, especially when his son that was the product of this illicit relationship with Bathsheba, when that child was sick, David fasted and he repented. We see that. We see fasting in Scripture associated with times of danger. As I said, often accompanying repentance. Sometimes fasting is associated with the beginning of an important task. Jesus, before His earthly ministry, moves into the desert and takes 40 days and fasts. We see other instances where there is fasting.
Jesus, by the way, here, I don't think is saying it's okay always to fast in private but never public. There are times, we see it in Acts chapter 6, where they're getting ready to send out Barnabas and Paul and they're told that the church fasted. So obviously they knew each other was fasting. And a few chapters later, as Paul and Barnabas begin their work in Acts chapter 14, they're fasting again as they begin this work.
The Nature of Biblical Fasting
Here's some things about fasting. It's always associated with prayer. We always see fasting linked with prayer. We see it in the idea of purifying a heart. It's the idea of obedience. It's the idea of godly living. You're saying, don't you fast by getting yourself all dressed down so everybody sees it. But He says, when you do, anoint your head and wash your face. The anointing of the head is a scented oil that they would use for grooming and for perfuming, for cleansing. It's the stuff you did today before you went to work. You got your face cleaned up and you washed your hair. Jesus says, listen, go ahead and do that.
One author writes this: genuine fasting is simply part of concentrated intense prayer and concern for the Lord, His will and His work. Jesus' point is that the Father never fails to notice fasting that is heartfelt and genuine and that He never fails to reward it. So the same thing that we've said basically about prayer and giving, He says about fasting. You do it with the right heart.
The Connection to Earthly Treasures
Now, it's interesting to me, and I will admit that until the last couple of days, I really didn't put together the whole connection of the next verse, verse 19: "Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven where neither moth nor rust destroy and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also."
It makes absolute sense to me now. Obviously, He's talking about a lot of things, but material things as well, but what these Pharisees had done was just stack up these treasures before men. Everything they did was to be seen. Everything that they did was calculated to create a response where somebody would go, wow, look at how godly they really are. Look at Him pray. Look at Him give. Look at Him fast. And Jesus is saying, listen, the reward is here. Don't lay up for yourselves treasures here.
Let's break this apart. We're going to spend about fifteen minutes on this passage, and then I'm just going to take fifteen minutes and just apply this to your life. I'm going to say to you right now, it's very important for you to grab a mirror and let this look at you, and you begin to evaluate yourself in light of what God has written here. Jesus has spoken here. Very, very important.
Don't Store Up Earthly Treasures
Don't lay up for yourselves treasures on earth. John Stott writes this: worldly ambition has a strong fascination for us. The spell of materialism is hard to break. The word that's translated "lay up" and the word that's translated "treasures" are very similar words in the Greek. In the English, we get the word thesaurus from them, a treasury of words. Don't stack up. The idea there is the idea of stacking or laying out horizontally stacks of coins, lining this stuff up in front of you. Don't lay up your treasure here.
Now, Jesus is not saying that you can't have stuff. He's not speaking against ownership. Every once in a while, we'll get somebody, especially that's concerned with the social gospel primarily, who will say, well, the Bible condemns. Well, the Bible doesn't condemn private ownership. I couldn't steal from you if you didn't own it. It doesn't condemn private ownership. The Bible's fine with you if you want to own land.
Money or animals or houses or clothes—anything that you acquire honestly is fine with God. What He's talking about here is not necessarily how we acquire it, but what's our relationship once we have it.
The Bible's really clear on this. God, the Lord, 1 Timothy 6:17, richly supplies us with all things to enjoy. God gives you things to enjoy. God also expects you, and this is just the reality of it, God expects you to work. In fact, here's what He says: if anyone will not work, he shouldn't eat.
A Lesson from the Golf Course
We were playing golf three or four weeks ago now up at a really nice place and we had a caddy for the day. This poor little caddy was working his tail off. He was out in the rocks, he was over in the rough. A couple of the guys that I was playing with were having a hard time hitting the fairway. I was able, generally speaking, to hit the fairway.
This guy was working and we got off on one hole. There's water on the left and I don't want to go in the water, so my last thought was, "Don't hit it in the water," as I hit it high right. And so it's over in the rocks. I said, "Just let it go." He said, "No, no, no, I can find it, Mr. Schrader." I said, "Okay."
So he finds it, he said, "I think you can hit it." I said, "Really? I'm going to hit this? Do you have a rock club?" He said, "Yeah, one of the guys has a rock club." I'm like, "Whack!" So I made bogey out of there, which I thought was pretty good.
So we're on the next tee and I said, "I am really sorry for how hard you're working. I mean, this is just not humane to be treating you like this." And he said, "Didn't Paul say if one will not work, he shouldn't eat either?" I said, "Well, let me tell you something, buddy. You ought to weigh 500 pounds by morning, because you've been working like a dog. But yeah, that's what it says."
What God Isn't Saying
So let me explain the other things. He's not saying that you shouldn't have financial planning. There's nothing wrong with financial planning. God's not speaking against insurance. I'll get somebody in my office, always the super Christian, who wants to come in and say, "If we're really godly, we wouldn't have insurance." And I say, "Well, wait a minute. I saw you get out of the car, you had on a seatbelt. Why would you wear a seatbelt?" I mean, this is stupid. God gave you a brain. Use your brain.
God's not saying it's wrong to have material things or have insurance. What He is saying is, it's wrong to be greedy. It's wrong to steal. It's wrong to be dishonest. It's wrong to hoard.
But here's the deal. Understand that you're going to invest in one of these two things: the temporal, which is destroyed, or the eternal, which lasts.
The Destruction of Earthly Treasures
Let me read it to you again: "Do not lay up for yourself treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where the thieves break in and steal."
The idea of the moth here is interesting. In that ancient Jewish culture, one of the ways you demonstrated wealth—at that point you didn't have a car to drive or a watch to wear—one of the ways that you demonstrated wealth to the casual observer was the clothes that you had. And clothes were all handmade. They weren't mass-produced like now. Clothes were all handmade. And frequently they would actually even take the gold and inlay it into the clothing. It was a great way to demonstrate, to have people go, "Wow, look at that. Look at that expensive piece. That must be a very rich person." And you go, "No, you should see their American Express bill. It's all charged."
He says, "Look, the moth is going to get in and destroy this thing." Or it's going to rust. The word rust means literally an eating. Translated everywhere else in the idea of eating, like the man who had the bumper crop and built the barns and they get in and they eat it away. That's how it's going to be destroyed.
Or thieves dig in, literally. They would either dig through the walls of the house or as they buried treasure, they would dig it up. It doesn't matter. Whatever you have in this world, ultimately you lose it. And if the moth doesn't get it, and if the rust doesn't get it, and if the thief doesn't get it, you ultimately lose it at death. You cannot take this stuff. And these material things that are used for yourself and your own good do not transcend into eternity.
A Picture from the Junkyard
There's a little book—I hadn't been in a Christian bookstore in a while. And this whole prayer of Jabez just launched this plethora of these little, small books. And there's a little, small book, but it's a good one. Randy Alcorn wrote a book called Treasure Principles. And it is an excellent book. Lots of great illustrations.
In it, Randy Alcorn writes this: "Take a ride with me. After a few miles, we turn off the road and pass through a gate and fall in line behind some pickup trucks. The vehicles ahead are filled with computers and stereo systems and furniture and appliances and fishing gear and toys. Higher and higher we climb until we reach a parking lot. There, the drivers unload their cargo. Curious, you watch a man hoist a computer. He staggers to the corner of the lot, then hurls the computer over the edge."
"Now you've got to find out what's going on. You scramble out of your car and you peer over the precipice, and at the bottom of the cliff is a giant pit filled with stuff. You finally understand this is a landfill, a junkyard, the final resting place for the things in our lives. Sooner or later, everything we own ends up here. Christmas and birthday presents, cars, boats, hot tubs, clothes, stereos, barbecues—treasures that..."
This is a great—I wish I could write like this. I wish I could talk like this. "Treasures that children quarreled about, friends were lost over, honesty was sacrificed for, and marriages broke up over all end up here. I recommend taking a family trip to a junkyard. It's a powerful object
All this stuff ends up there. All this stuff goes there. I don't even need to recreate what you go through every Christmas morning as you spend hundreds and thousands of dollars to buy toys for these kids, and you're so frustrated that literally they play with the box instead of the toy, and after about a half a day, they're bored with it.
I did not see this PBS thing, this Frontier Home thing, but I heard from a bunch of people that it was terrific. Basically, the premise is they take three families and they put them back in circa 1850 or whatever it is, and they put them out there, and they don't have much, and they've got to survive with just those things. What I hear is it's pretty remarkable how inept we are at just rationing food and different things.
But they then interview them as they come back and they're talking to one kid as he's sitting on Malibu or somewhere in their home overlooking the ocean and there's the endless pool and all the things. He's coming out of this, he's got all this stuff that goes with it and he said, "There's really nothing to do here. This is kind of boring living here." Every time you just go spend all this money for this stuff on the kids, you're just setting yourself up for great frustration. Because it isn't going to make them happy. It's only going to make you angry. They're always going to want more. And it's going nowhere.
The Ultimate Destination of Our Stuff
I mentioned to Susan the other day, apparently a little more aggressively than I thought, that we've got to get this garage cleaned out. We've got to get shelving in there and get this stuff stacked up. We've got to get these boxes out of here. And she said, "Well it's all your stuff." I said, "It's not all my stuff. That box says Haley on it. That isn't mine. It says Sarah—that's not mine." But her point is, and I know what it is, it's stuff that we'd moved and stuff. But that's the ultimate destination of all of these things.
That's what Jesus is saying here. Jesus is saying, "Listen, you're going to store up treasury one way or the other. You're either going to put treasury here or treasury in heaven. And if you want to put it here, it's a loser."
The Foolish Investment Illustration
The illustration I love is, some guy comes to you and says, "Listen, I've got this company. We've been in business ten months. Our goal is to survive one year. We need to raise some money to do it. There's no way, absolutely no way, that we're going to survive beyond this one year. Our product is obsolete, our program is poor, and we're as poorly managed as it can be. But our intent is to try to stay open a year. We need you to invest in some stock for this thing. We need you to buy some stock for this thing."
Now, having invested in two things like that, I just ask the question: given that, would you buy it? And the answer is no. But there's a sense in which every buck I pump into this world, I'm buying a stock like that, because He's telling me up front, it isn't going to survive. It isn't going to make it.
Where Your Heart Is
And He adds this ominous phrase: where your treasure is, that's where your heart is. He doesn't say, "Invest in the right things and then your heart will be okay." He says, "No, where's your stuff going? Where's everything headed?"
An illustration, and it's designed to clarify, but it's a little bit confusing, He says this, verse 22: "The lamp of the body is the eye. If therefore, your eye is clear, your whole body will be filled with light. If your eye is bad, your whole body will be filled with darkness. If therefore, the light that is in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!"
The Eye as Illustration of the Heart
What's He talking about here? One commentator helps, I think, when he says, the eye becomes an illustration of the heart. In either case, even if I leave it as an eye, that's fine too. What He's saying is, where your heart is and your treasure, that's where your treasure is, or where your treasure is, that's where your heart is.
And then after, verse 24, "Nobody can serve two masters," He's saying, "Listen, if I see things clearly from this eternal perspective, and I understand these things, then my life is going to be full of light. If I don't see it, it's going to be full of darkness." Jesus says to us, "Don't invest in this world, in the kingdom of this world. Watch out." Well, that's because our home isn't here. Philippians 3:20, our citizenship is in heaven. 2 Corinthians 5:20, we are ambassadors to Christ.
Two Masters
Verse 24, and it's a familiar passage. I mean, Bob Dylan has sung it. "No one can serve two masters, for he will either hate one and love the other, or hold to one and despise the other." And then if you're wondering what the illustration's about, He's saying, "You cannot serve God and money."
Let me spend the rest of the time, five minutes or so on that verse, and then the balance, trying to close it. No one can serve two masters. He's not talking here, very important, He's not talking about employers. Several of you probably have two jobs, or three jobs. I have two jobs, basically. And I respond to two different entities. He's not talking about two employers. You can have two or three jobs, and you can satisfy your employers. He's not talking about that.
The Impossibility of Serving Two Masters
He said, nobody can have two masters. The word is often translated, "Lord," and speaks of a slave owner. I can't be enslaved to two different people. The idea of a slave owner is total absolute control. If you have total absolute control of me, and you have total absolute control of me, then there's a sense in which no one has total absolute control of me. I cannot serve two masters.
Get what Jesus is saying here. He doesn't say it's difficult. He says it's impossible. He doesn't say, "Well this is really a hard deal, and not many people can pull it off." He says, "No one can serve two masters." This is what we've been saying. I would suggest to you, this has been an anthem of priority living in my teaching for a
You live in a world that is just sucking you into this whole idea of satisfaction with material stuff, and Jesus is saying, you can't pull it off. Nobody can serve two masters. Nobody can serve God and stuff.
John MacArthur writes this: the orders of these two masters, God and money, are diametrically opposed and cannot coexist. The one commands us to walk by faith, the other to walk by sight. The one commands us to be humble, the other to be proud. The one sets our minds on the things above, the other sets our minds on the things below. The one calls us to light, the other to darkness. The one tells us to look toward things unseen and eternal. The other tells us to look at things that are seen and temporal.
John Calvin writes this: where riches hold the dominion in our heart, God has lost His authority. Your relationship with your stuff is going to determine the depth of your relationship with your Lord.
The Rarity of Worldly and Spiritual Success
I use the word rarely, and I'll keep it rarely, because the other is too offensive. Rarely are you going to find somebody who's successful in the world's eyes and equally successful in God's eyes. It just doesn't happen.
It takes so much time and so much energy and so much effort to be successful. You take a company that's well-run, and you kind of look at it and go, that's on autopilot. Nothing's on autopilot. It takes time to manage staff, it takes time to manage personnel, it takes time to manage accounts payable and receivable and manufacturing. It takes time. This stuff doesn't just happen.
I used to think, and I'll just confess this, when I was a kid—and I mean 25 or so—I'd look around and I'd see these people and I'd see them playing golf and I'd say, man, they got it in the wheelhouse. They've paid their dues, it's over. Nobody pays their dues and it's over. This is hard work.
It takes time, energy and effort to be successful in the world's eyes. And every ounce of time, energy and effort that's invested in this kingdom is an ounce of time, energy and effort that I can't invest in the kingdom of God. It's really as simple as that.
Solomon's Testimony About Earthly Satisfaction
Here's what Solomon said. Wisest guy that ever lived, Solomon. God gave us Solomon as an illustration to just say to you, you're never going to be happy here. That's what Solomon tells you. I tried it all, I did it all.
We're going to talk about money and stuff, but Solomon had it all. He had all the business, he had all the drink, he had women, he had 300 wives and 700 concubines. That's the original 700 Club right there. Solomon essentially could have two to three gals every day and in a year, at the end of the year, he would have never seen any one of them twice. He had it all.
And at the end of his life, here's what he says. He says, that's just meaningless. When he talks about money, here's what Solomon wrote, Ecclesiastes chapter 5, verse 10. I want to give you a little tip. If you've got a modern translation, it's especially helpful. If you can get a modern translation, a paraphrase, read the book of Ecclesiastes.
The Insatiable Nature of Wealth
Here's what Solomon says, Ecclesiastes 5:10: "Whoever loves money never has money enough. The more money you have, the more you want. Whoever loves wealth is never satisfied with his income."
Well, Solomon said it. The Orange County Register did a poll a few years ago, and here's what they asked: how much money would it take to make you happy? Here's what they discovered. Those who were making 35 said 50. Those making 50 said 75. Those making 75 said 100. Those making 100 said 100 and a quarter. Those making 100 and a quarter said 100 and a half. In other words, anything but here, because Solomon hit it right. Whoever loves wealth is never satisfied with his income.
"As goods increase, so do those who consume them." The more you have, the more people will come after it and the more you'll spend it.
America's Consumer Debt Crisis
I'm going to give you a bunch of statistics here, and it's probably stuff you sense and maybe even know. Right now, in this country, Americans owe more than $600 billion in consumer debt. That's non-mortgage debt. $490 billion of it is credit cards. Ten percent of these credit cards are in the hands of teenagers.
The credit card companies will spend $1 billion this year marketing toward college students, targeting the top 250 universities in the nation. One author writes this: that means that a college freshman moving into his dorm will have three credit card applications waiting for him with pre-approved credit of $3,000 each. That's $9,000 of instant credit requiring no effort, no discussion, no permission from mom and dad.
There are enough credit cards in this country for every man, woman, and child to have four of them. The average American is carrying right now $7,000 in credit card debt on their balance. I want you to see this. The average American is paying $1,200 a year in credit card interest.
The Hidden Cost of Daily Spending
Isn't that staggering? If that $1,200 per year were invested over 30 years at 8%, the total would be $36,000 invested. The return with compound interest at 8%, which is reasonable, is $136,000.
I deal a lot with people who are saying, I just can't get by. And here you go. So every day they get a mocha frappe grande. Now, I'm not making any judgments on this. It's $4. But you nurse it all day. And you do it five days a week. So you got $20. At the end of the year, you spend $1,000.
It would be so helpful if in January you had to prepay that. Because I don't think you'd belly up and write a check for $1,000 to Starbucks at the beginning of the year. But when it's just a little $4 a day drip, at the end of the year, now you're a couple, and you're
doing that as well, that's $2,000 a year in venti mocha bing blams, whatever they are. And you're sitting across from me telling me that you don't have any money, and you can only barely get by.
I'll give you an interesting statistic. I love this statistic. In the year 1900, 43% of a family's income was spent on food. Got it? 43%. In the year 1998, 15% was spent on food. Where's all this money going? We're making a whole bunch more, but we're not spending it on food anymore. Well, mocha venti grandes and all these different things.
I'll give you just a couple more of these things. There are 1.2 million personal bankruptcies each year. This kind of surprised me. The average personal bankruptcy is for less than $7,000 in debt. Just to give you perspective, because remember what he said: as goods increase, so do those who consume them. Savings rate is less than half of 1%. It's lower than it was during the Great Depression. Here's a statistic: for every $1 increase in household income, spending goes up $1.10. It's staggering.
Whoever loves money never has enough. Whoever loves wealth is never satisfied with his income. As goods increase, so do those who consume them.
The Impact on Giving
Now, let me show you what's getting whacked in this deal. How about giving? Giving as a percentage of income is lower now than in 1933, the heart of the Depression. 3% of American Christians give 10% or more of their income. I'll say it again: 3%. 37% of regular church attenders give nothing at all. The average Christian gives 2.5% of their income, the average pagan 2.4%. Well, there's no difference.
Why? Because Jesus says, "Don't lay up for yourself treasures on earth," and we are just filling this treasure on earth like that. Jesus isn't saying don't buy these treasures on earth because they're bad. He's just saying they don't last. They don't make the transition into eternity with you.
The Tyranny of Things
If I could just get you to see this. It's kind of the principle of unintended consequences. It's the idea that if I meet a need, my need is met, when in reality, when I meet a need, I just create a whole bevy of new needs.
Randy Alcorn writes this: "Let's say I get a television for free. Now what? I hook up the antenna and subscribe to cable. I buy a new VCR or DVD. I rent movies. I get surround sound speakers. I buy a recliner so I can watch my programs in comfort. This all costs money, but it also takes amounts of time and energy and attention. The time I devote to my TV and its accessories is less time for communicating with family, reading the word, praying, opening my house, ministering to the needy. So what's the cost of my free television? Acquiring a possession may push you into redefining your priorities."
If I buy a boat, I want to justify my purchase by using the boat, which may mean frequent weekends away from family or church, making me unavailable to attend my daughter's basketball game or teach a Sunday school class or work in a nursery. The problem isn't the boat or the television. The problem is me. It's a law of life. It's the tyranny of things. It's more stuff.
The Weekend Problem
I love the boat illustration. There's no way that you're going to buy this boat and not want to use it. And to use it takes so much time and so much energy and so much effort, and so frequently takes place on the weekends, wherein God's people are gathering together, and you need to be there and be serving in the middle of it.
Is it okay to have a cabin? Sure, it's okay to have a cabin. Is it okay to have a boat? Sure, it's okay to have a boat, but aren't you going to want to use it? And the logical time for most people is weekends, which takes you right out of the body of Christ. Haven't we said this to you enough? It's way better to know somebody who has a cabin than to own a cabin. Or to know somebody that has a boat than to own a boat. But do you see how that happens?
Lessons from the Wealthy
When I was a coal banker, I got some great advice early on. One of the guys said to me, "Pick out somebody in the industry, whether they're in brokerage, or they're in development, or they're in lending, whatever. Pick out somebody who's where you think you'd like to be, and they look like they got it together, and go and talk to him and ask him what it took to get there, and what it's like to stay there." That was great advice, very helpful to me.
Let me give you some advice from some of the wealthiest people of their day. These are the guys that if you had the guts to say it out loud, you'd like to be like. These are the guys that would be your heroes. These are the guys that in your mind you dream about.
W. H. Vanderbilt said this: "The care of 200 million dollars is enough to kill anyone, there's no pleasure in it." John Jacob Astor said, "I'm the most miserable man on earth." John D. Rockefeller said, "I have made many millions, but they have brought me no happiness." Henry Ford said, "I was happier when doing a mechanic's job." Andrew Carnegie: "Millionaires seldom smile."
That's true too. You play golf at a rich place with rich people, and everybody's somber. You go to a public course where they're driving the carts on the greens, they're laughing, everybody's happy, nobody cares. I think of all the weddings I've been to, and some of the nicest weddings at the nicest places where they spent a ton of money, and they're pretty somber. I mean if there isn't the booze to loosen people up, there's nobody really having fun.
I've been to some of these small weddings, or gotten to some of these cultural weddings, and there is real fun there. I watched Behind the Music this weekend, and they were doing a thing on Hall & Oates, and they were talking about how they were having fun and doing well, and then they got a million dollars. It said when they got the million dollars, that's what ruined them.
Now am I saying to you there's something wrong with that? I'm not. What I'm saying to you is that stuff will eventually own you. It just has to. It has to by definition. The accumulation, the retention, the maintenance of money and stuff is just too big a price to pay, I think.
We Have One Brief Opportunity
Let me end with this. Again, from Randy Alcorn—at this point you might think of buying this book. At the end of the movie Schindler's List there's a heart-wrenching scene in which Oskar Schindler, who bought from the Nazis the lives of many Jews, looks at his car and his gold pins and regrets that He didn't give more of His money and possessions to save more lives. Schindler had used His opportunity far better than most, but in the end He longed for a chance to go back and make better choices.
Unbelievers have no second chance to relive their lives, this time following Christ, but as Christians we also get no second chance to live our life over, this time doing more to help the needy or to invest in God's kingdom. We have one brief opportunity, a lifetime on earth, to use our resources to make a difference.
Five minutes after we die, we'll know exactly how we should have lived. But God has given us His Word so we don't have to wait to die to find out. He's given us His Spirit to empower us to live that way now.
The Clarion Call for All of Life
In other words, you know how you're supposed to live—it's right there in this book. Ask yourself, five minutes after I die, what will I wish I would have given away while I still had the chance? When you come up with the answer, why not give it away now? Why not spend the rest of your life closing the gap between what you wish you would have given and what you really gave?
That's the call, and that's the clarion call for all of life. Why in the world are you going down this road that you know is a loser? I don't understand it and yet I fully comprehend it. It's a loser. Every ounce I invest in this world is a loser. That's what He's saying. He's saying, don't store up these treasures here. It's a loser.
Imagine at the end of your life, saved by grace, maintained by grace, but functionally self-absorbed with your time on this planet. What a sorry legacy. That doesn't have to be your obituary either. That's up to you to resolve.
If you're questioning, what am I supposed to do? Grab one of those black books and start reading it and it'll tell you what to do. How are you supposed to live? Figure it out. After He talks about not laying up treasure here, He writes this, by the way: and don't be anxious. Don't be worrying. We'll look at that next week.
It's Hard but Worth the Struggle
It's just hard. Isn't it? I mean isn't it hard? This is so hard because the answer evades me and changes. I find my life and what I'm supposed to do with my stuff changes. My kids get older and they change. It's really hard stuff, but it's worth the struggle. It really is.
Father, help us see it. Give us eyes to see our life as it really is. God, help us see how much of an illusion the temporary is. We look at the temporary and we tend to think it's eternal. We look at the eternal and because we can't get our arms around it, we think it doesn't really exist or it's so abstract. Father, help us walk by faith, knowing that what You taught us through Your Word is true. God, change our life. We ask that in Jesus' name, amen.